The present invention relates to a railroad car of the type comprising a box body extending longitudinally and delimiting compartments, seats arranged in the compartments, means for identifying the seats, means for identifying the car, and at least one side door providing access to the compartments.
In particular, the invention relates to railroad cars that are to travel at high speed, i.e. speeds in excess of approximately 270 km/h.
Cars of the abovementioned type, for example with two stories, are known. Such cars each comprise, at a longitudinal end, two side access doors provided in the side walls of the box body. These side doors provide access via a lower landing to the compartment of the lower story and, by means of a staircase and an upper landing, to the compartment of the upper story.
When a plurality of such cars are hitched up together to form a train, it is also possible to move longitudinally from the upper compartment of one car to the upper compartment of an adjacent car via connecting doors provided at the longitudinal ends of the cars.
It has been observed that such cars have a number of drawbacks.
Thus, passengers encounter problems in locating and gaining access to the seats allocated to them when they make a reservation.
Indeed, despite the means identifying the car, which are generally provided near the side access doors, many passengers select the wrong car and enter a car adjacent to the one in which their seat has been reserved.
This gives rise to opposing flows of passengers that make access to seats tedious and time-consuming, all the more so when trains stop at stations where passengers have to leave the cars and others have to enter in order to gain access to their seats.
This situation is exacerbated by the long distances to be covered from the access doors of a car in order to reach the seats arranged at the other longitudinal end of the car.
Lastly, the length of the lower compartments of such cars, which constitute dead ends, further increases passengers' difficulty of access to the seats they have reserved.